SED TV Reviews

According to Reuters, Toshiba has dropped plans to introduce an OLED TV by 2009/2010 citing costs of mass production. This is another blow to those who are looking for the next alternative to LCD TV or plasma TV.

However, it seems to follow Toshiba’s pattern of making announcements about a technology (ie: SED TV) and then dropping it when things don’t seem too rosy.

This leaves Sony and maybe, just maybe, Samsung as the only OLED TV contenders. Don’t forget though, Sony only has an 11″ OLED TV model right now and Samsung has nothing.

Perhaps FED TV will become more of a contender now as SED TV and OLED TV suffer various birthing problems. FED TV will not be on display at CES2008 though as it’s not designed for the consumer market yet.

Technorati Tags: SED TV, OLED TV, FED TV, SONY, Toshiba, Samsung

A very interesting article at DisplayDaily provides some thought provoking information on the future of SED TV and perhaps all FED based TV technology.

“In a November 13th press release issued in Tokyo, Canon announced that its Board of Directors had agreed to acquire a majority interest of Tokki Corporation and make Tokki a consolidated subsidiary of Canon. One of Tokki’s businesses is the development, design, manufacturing and marketing of production equipment for organic LED displays (as well as thin-film solar panels).

The press release quotes Canon’s global corporation plan, launched in 2006, which says that, in addition to “securing the overwhelming number one position worldwide in all current core businesses, Canon is focusing on the launching of display operations as a new business. As one of the initiatives in these efforts, the company is diligently working to develop organic LED elements and process technologies targeting the application of an organic LED display product.” ”

No mention of SED TV. Not very inspiring for SED TV fans and enthusiasts but there it is. Standing by for any news to the contrary.

Canon is getting deeper in OLED manufacturing. An excerpt from Reuters
TOKYO, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Canon Inc (7751.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said it aims to take a majority stake in Tokki Corp (9813.Q: Quote, Profile, Research), a supplier of flat panel-making equipment, for $69 million or more to speed development of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels.

Canon has been developing OLED panels in a bid to replace liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, which it now procures from outside suppliers for digital camera, camcorder and printer displays. (more…)

SED TV is conspicuous by it’s absence at FPD 2007 in Yokohama. No surprise considering the current state of events. However, check out the FED TV, or Field Emission Display. Full HD at up to 240 FPS! Photos and more at FED TV Reviews

Aussie Government to ban fat-panel TVs

An interesting article that boosts SED TV and OLED TV for energy consumption reasons alone. Good reading at the link above, especially the headline!

Thursday, 11 October 2007, 6:15 PM WITH AN EYE ON melting Antarctica, the Australian government is proposing regulations that would ban most plasma and LCD HDTVs by the year 2011.

After commissioning a report that found the popularity of high power-drawing TVs like plasma and LCD TVs is growing. The bigger and brighter screens get, the more power is required, and Australia is trying to crack down on energy consumption. This is the government that was looking into banning incandescent bulbs in favor of fluorescent bulbs earlier this year.

By 2011, plasma and LCD TVs could be replaced with less energy consuming technologies like SED TV and OLED TV. But for now, the planet heats up because of our TVs.

Technorati Tags: SED TV, OLED TV

With SED TV going nowhere at the moment, Canon and Nano-Proprietary have lost once again. Sony announced a few minutes ago that the Sony OLED TV will be released December 1, 2007. It’s only an 11″ model, but it’s the first OLED TV and the first real challenge to Plasma and LCD TV to be available to the consumer. Another sad day for SED TV fans. Press release below:
TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp said on Monday it would launch an ultra-thin flat TV based on the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology on December 1, bringing a new contender to a market dominated by LCD and plasma TVs.

It will be the world’s first OLED TV, the company said.

Sony, the world’s second-largest liquid crystal display TV maker behind Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, expects an 11-inch OLED TV with a thickness of 3 mm to sell for 200,000 yen ($1,700).

OLED panels are said to be energy efficient, make thin and light displays, offer crisp pictures and have strength in showing fast-moving images, suitable for watching sports events and action movies.

But manufacturers still face some technological challenges in making larger panels and driving down production costs to compete commercially with LCD and plasma TVs, analysts say.

Technorati Tags: Sony, Canon, Nano-Proprietary, SED TV, OLED TV, Sony OLED TV

Many new full HD models have been introduced at IFA 2007 in Berlin.Sharp in particular has introduced a potential challenger to SED TV.  The one inch thick, Sharp LCD TV is available in both 42 and 50 inches and states a contrast ratio of 100,000:1

Full specs and pricing aren’t available at this time. Check back for more information as it’s released. If the price is anywhere close to reasonable, this could throw another wrench into the SED works.

Technorati Tags: IFA 2007, Sharp, SED TV, Sharp LCD TV

I came across an very interesting paper titled “Technical comparison between SED and FED”

It covers in great detail the similarities and differences between SED TV and FED TV

and was presented by Richard Fink of Applied Nanotech Inc., at Asia Display 2007.

This is a must read for SED TV fans. The paper is reprinted here:

Technical comparison between SED and FED

Permission for
Reprint, courtesy Society for Information Display

Technorati Tags: SED, FED, SED TV, FED TV

Note: a reader has commented that this story is from 2006. Sorry if I raised any expectations of SED TV production this year.

Toshiba is still mentioning SED TV in a recent story from www.arnnet.com

I’m pretty confident we won’t see any SED televisions from Toshiba at all this year.

Toshiba plans to end sales of CRT (cathode ray tube) and analog-tuner equipped LCD (liquid crystal display) televisions in Japan from April this year, it said Tuesday.

The company will instead concentrate its efforts on rebranding and promoting its digital LCD televisions, said Satoshi Niikura, executive vice president of Toshiba’s digital media network company, at a Tokyo news conference. The digital TV market is growing fast in Japan after the launch of terrestrial digital TV broadcasting in late 2004.

Overall LCD TV sales were 4.4 million units last year and surpassed sales of CRT sets for the first time. For this year Toshiba anticipates LCD TV sales will grow to 6 million units, and further to 7 million units in 2007. In contrast, the CRT TV market is seen contracting from 3.5 million sets in 2005 to 900,000 sets in 2007. The company expects to sell 650,000 PDP (plasma display panel) TV sets in 2007.

The year is unlikely to see any significant sales of SED (surface-conduction electron-emitter display) panel sets, Niikura said. Toshiba and Canon Inc. have been developing the technology for some time and have a joint production line in the Tokyo suburbs but commercial products are yet to be seen. Toshiba had originally promised SED televisions last year and is currently targeting them in small volumes during the “spring” of this year but a decision on whether the technology is ready for use in a commercial product is yet to be made.

Following the lead of several of its largest competitors, Toshiba plans to unify branding of its flat-panel television sets worldwide under a single name, the company also announced.

Technorati Tags: SED TV, SED, surface-conduction electron-emitter display, Toshiba, Canon

Not much going on in the SED TV world lately. We can only hope that Nano Proprietary and Canon are doing some negotiating.

Summer is here, so if there is nothing earthshattering in the SED TV field, this blog may be quiet for a while. Hope everyone out there has a great summer.

P.S. Keep your fingers crossed…

Technorati Tags: SED TV, Nano Proprietary